Merelinense

The Estádio João Soares Vieira holds about 5,000 people. Merelinense have played there since taking shape in São Pedro de Merelim in 1938, red and white on the shirt.

The regional game is where Merelinense actually built something. They won the AF Braga 1ª Divisão three times before 1991, took the Divisão de Honra twice in the years that followed, and in 2015/16 put together a double, the Pró-Nacional title alongside the Taça AF Braga, adding the Supertaça and the Taça dos Campeões do Minho in the same stretch. The following season very nearly took them further: second place in the Campeonato de Portugal put them into the promotion play-offs for the Segunda Liga, where Académico de Viseu ended the run. The nearest they came to a wider audience was 2010/11, when a Taça de Portugal run reached the quarter-finals after beating Varzim, before Vitória de Guimarães closed it out.

What travelled further than any result was a goalkeeper. José Sá came through the Merelinense academy before Benfica, Marítimo, Porto and Wolverhampton Wanderers took him on to the Portugal national side, and Miguel Crespo followed a similar path out to Fenerbahçe. That academy work sat oddly against what happened in April 2024, when unpaid wages and a debt owed to Portimonense over a transfer fee brought the entire board to resign at once.

The capacity has been recorded as low as 2,000.